CHAPTER III.

OBSTINATE ELLEN.

MARY DAVIS and her friend Jane were one day in the show-room together, completing some arrangements for the display of fashions, which, at stated periods of the year, brought all the ladies of the neighborhood to inspect Miss Baylis's tasteful and tempting productions.

"O Mary," said Jane, as she settled a bonnet on the stand, "I do so often wish we were not milliners. I have never told you yet what I have been thinking about it, because you are one yourself; but it seems to me quite a different sort of business from what it did when I began it."

"Does it? Why?" said Mary, going on with her work, which just then was the completion of a pretty little cap.

"Why, what have we been doing now, but setting out temptations to people to come and spend their money on many things they do not really want, who will be persuaded to commit all sorts of extravagances, instead of doing good with the means that God has given them."

[Illustration: The Young Milliners.]

"I have thought of that," said Mary, "but I never persuade; I show the thing I am asked for, and it seems to me, that as people must have respectable clothing, they may as well buy what is new and pretty when they are about it."

"Ah! But it is not what 'must' be had that I am objecting to; you will see, presently, many ladies will buy things they never thought of, just because Miss Baylis says they are fashionable, or cheap, or very becoming; and she says her bills are sure to be paid, because no lady likes her milliner's account to be known. Besides, Mary, one is obliged to be so insincere, and tell people things are becoming and suitable, when one sees all the while they are just the very opposite."

"Obliged?" said Mary.—"Obliged to say what is not true, Jane?"

"Miss Baylis thinks so, and Miss Robson does it without any scruple, as you will hear if you stay in the show-room."

"But you and I, Jane?"

"Well, dear Mary, not you, I am quite sure, but I can't say as much for myself; if I should be determined to get on, I may be tempted. And you may depend upon it that all who get on do it."

"One might have a good business, I think, if one only worked for those who mean what they say, and want what they come to look at," said Mary.

"Good enough to satisfy you, perhaps; but is it not the gay and fashionable, the vain and extravagant, who make milliners' fortunes?"

"Well, but is it right to want to make a fortune? Does not the Bible say, 'He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent;' and 'They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts?' And they may do that in any kind of business."

"Then you would not think it right to induce people to buy your goods?"

"Not against my conscience, and, as you said just now, my sense of their being proper for them."

"Well, now, whom would you wish to buy that pretty cap you have just finished so nicely?"

"Some nice-looking lady, who can afford to sit still, I think," replied Mary, laughing, as she held up her work to see the effect; "for these gossamer quillings will never keep their proper places in a breeze."

"Hush, Mary! Look, look!" whispered Jane. "Here come some ladies to get the first look at the thing."

And two or three ladies advanced into the room.

"I want a pretty cap, and Miss Baylis says there is one just the thing here," said an elderly person in spectacles, with a florid complexion and a bustling manner, but, who was one of the richest of Miss Baylis's customers. "Is this it?" she asked, taking the cap out of Mary's hand, and turning to one of her friends. "Very pretty, isn't it? And quite new, Miss Baylis said. I'll just try it on."

And the delicate little cap was presently placed on a head considerably too large for the shape.

"Will it do, do you think?" said the lady, looking good-humoredly at Mary, while the friends had gone to some other part of the room, perhaps to avoid giving an opinion.

Mary saw at once that it did not "do" at all.

"I think, ma'am," said she, modestly, "if you will allow me, I can show you some others which may suit better!"

"But this is a new style, is it not?"

"Yes, ma'am, but—perhaps this, the style is not old of this one." And she presented a comfortable looking cap, much better suited to the age and appearance of the lady.

"Ah, yes, this is very comfortable." And it looked comfortable too, Mary thought.

"But," continued the lady, "I want something a little more dressy, you know. This is rather too much of a morning cap."

"We can make up the same pattern in handsomer materials, if you think proper, ma'am," said Mary respectfully.

"Well, yes, do so then. I think this suits me very well, and it fits so comfortably."

At this moment Miss Baylis appeared, and immediately suspecting that the millinery had not been recommended with any particular eloquence, she began to praise the cap, entreated the lady to try it again, and expatiated so warmly on the becoming effect of the latest fashion, that the cap was purchased, and the lady departed, fully persuaded that she had the prettiest head-dress in the town.

"I wish Miss Robson to attend in the show-room, you know, Mary," said Miss Baylis.

"She was not quite ready, ma'am," replied Mary; "and she only asked me to wait until she came."

Then Miss Robson came forward, and being a stylish looking little person, with a head and shoulders that suited every decoration that could be put upon them, and admirably showed off Miss Baylis's fashion, she seldom failed, by her flattery and insinuating manners, to persuade any purchasers who came within the power of her tongue, that the thing, whatever it might be, which seemed to please, or which required to be got rid of, was, without doubt, the very article they most wanted, and certainly ought to buy.

"Mary, I was very near speaking out about that cap," said Jane, "for it vexed me to see it carried off by that foolish old lady. I wonder her companions did not advise her not to make herself look ridiculous."

"I felt sorry to see so little idea of what is comfortable and suitable in old age," said Mary; "I did what I could to help it."

"Miss Baylis is to blame; she said many things that were untrue about it, and now you see one reason why I dislike the business; I think I shall ask uncle to let me do something else. But I shall talk to your mother about it first."

Jane did not forget the subject, and when she told Mrs. Davis of her wish to give up her present occupation, she felt a little disappointed when her kind friend asked calmly, "On what ground, my dear, will you name this wish to your uncle? He will want a good reason for it, of course."

"I shall tell him that it is a business which tempts people to be vain and worldly, and that I do not like to spend my time so."

"But examine well, dear Jane, before you blame the business. There will always be people who have neither time, not inclination, nor ability to make their own clothing; and is it not right that they should have it done for them?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"Well, cannot directions be obeyed, and the best method and the best materials employed, without vanity, or insincerity, or worldliness on the part of the workman?"

"They might by Mary."

"And why not by Jane, if she has the same principle to guide her, and the same desire to adorn the Gospel she professes to love? It appears to me that your idea is just met by the advice of the apostle, 'Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called,' if it be a lawful one. The only objection you bring against your business is that which covetousness or some such sin joins to it. There is nothing wrong in itself; and if you see it abused into wrong by others, you should try to prove that it is no more of necessity the minister of sin than any other calling in the world."

"But one would never get on, you know. It would be but a poor second-rate sort of business, if one could not do as others do."

"'What is 'getting on,' Jane? Where does one get to? What is the end in view? Is it to glorify God in some prospect of a future that we may never live to see? It seems to me that the Christian has nothing to do with what the world calls 'getting on,' but his desire and duty are to glorify God every day and every hour of his life in the present, the only time he is sure of; and if doing that, 'why take ye thought for the morrow?' 'Why envy the foolish their rapid prosperity, when so few can bear it without being 'lifted up to their hurt?' How far better to walk with God in conscientious regard to truthfulness and sincerity, depending prayerfully on his providence, than to manage a first rate fashionable business with a worldly eye to 'getting on.'"

"Then don't you think one ought to wish to give up some day, and be—be independent?" hesitated Jane. "To save something, I mean, that we may have it to live upon when we are not able to work."

"That may be done—it had better be done—quite honestly, Jane; and the believer will not allow his present conscience to be blotted with any known sin, to secure a future object. If God's Spirit is in him, and God's word guides him, he will have patience, he will live frugally, and he will give cheerfully, nor refuse to do good with his dime now, because he hopes to have his dollar to give away by and by. The looking forward to a time to spend in self-indulgence that which has been laid up in years of industry, is one of the devil's snares to check benevolence and foster covetousness; and he persuades men that it is lawful from the highest to the lowest branch of earthly business. It is not for the true Christian to stoop from his high calling to this; it is of the world, it is like the world, it is meddling with forbidden things, and yet it may be made to seem so plausible, that it needs a careful exercise of Christian judgment and the strict watchfulness of an enlightened conscience to discern motives for earning and saving, as well as for giving and spending."

"Then," said Jane, "you see no inconsistency in helping to make vain and extravagant people more vain and extravagant still."

"I see that Mary and you are engaged in obeying the orders of people of very opposite dispositions, without being aware in many cases of what they are, and without being influenced for the better or the worse by them. Our consistency, my dear girl, does not lie in the power of those around us; it must have its deep living root in the love of Christ in our own hearts."

"Well, then, Mrs. Davis, I am sure you will agree with me in the next thing I am going to say. I mean to alter the style of my own dress at once, and no longer look like a show-block for the exhibition of the fashions."

"I confess there is something about it occasionally that may be improved, my dear; but it will be right to consider that in future, and not cast aside what you have already bought, unless you can afford to do so."

"Ah! Then you think me wrong again I see?"

"Be sure that God has changed your heart first, Jane. His work begins within; and the heart that is being probed and cleansed and renewed by his grace does not begin with external things. I knew a young lady once—she was such by birth and station—who became acquainted with a Christian family, and admired and loved them ardently. They were extremely plain in their dress, and having resolved to follow them in everything, she did so in that. She not only gave up the gay society she had mixed in, and offended all her relatives by denouncing them as worldly, and unworthy of her attention and love, but she gave away all her ornaments, many of which were very valuable, burned or destroyed all her fashionable clothes, and appeared abroad in a plain common gown, and a bonnet with only ribbon enough on it to serve for strings. Her friends began to think she was deranged; but she said that God's people were 'a peculiar people,' and the Lord Jesus himself was said to be mad.

"She was sent from home for a time, in the hope of giving a turn to her thoughts; but this only strengthened her resolutions, and increased the ardor of her apparent devotion to her religious views. At last, believing her to be sincere and conscientious in all these singularities, her mother received her again, allowing her to dress, act, visit, read, and go among the sick and poor as she pleased, while the subject of religion was never mentioned in her presence excepting with respect and concurrence in anything she thought proper to say.

"By degrees she wearied of a profession which had no enduring life-giving energy within, and no connection with true faith from above; and after the lapse of about two years, the cessation of all opposition left the sparks she had kindled herself to die out. I met her in the street to her way to pay a morning visit, dressed expensively and fashionably, even to a white bonnet and feathers; and I heard of her shortly afterwards dancing among the gayest and most thoughtless at a ball given by some of her worldly friends, who were delighted to perceive that she had what they called 'come to her senses again.'

"Once afterward I had an opportunity of speaking to her, when she boldly denounced all who made any profession of religion, as hypocrites or self-deceivers, and said she should forever suspect everybody who wore a straight ribbon, or a common gown unsuited to her station in life; that she had made a great mistake herself in being influenced by the example of others while in their society; but that she had now regained the exercise of her own independent judgment, and was once more a reasonable creature. Thus, you see, she had returned from the extremity of outward opposition to the world and its ways, to the point from which she set out."

"But did she never have any more religious thoughts or desires?" asked Jane.

"I do not know; but I should suppose her hours of private meditation, if she ever had any, could not be very happy ones."

"Poor girl, it was very sad," said Jane; "I hope I shall not be like her, Mrs. Davis."

"I hope not, indeed, dear Jane; but I have mentioned her to you, that you may see how possible it is to assume 'a form of godliness,' without knowing anything of 'the power thereof.' Be sure that what outward changes you make, you do so because you love God, and desire to glorify him, and can ask him to sanctify the motive, which no eye but his own can see in its true light."

"O! Mrs. Davis, how kind you are to talk to me in this way. I am a very weak, foolish creature, and I fear I am wanting to be doing something to look religious, before I have got any real religion at all. But I do sometimes feel sure that I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and then I want to do something to please him."

"That is quite right, Jane; and God forbid that I should check that loving thought."

"Ah, but then I find myself wanting to seem better than others, instead of remembering how wretchedly worthless I am myself before God. I cannot think how it is, but I never seem to have a good thought or a right feeling about salvation, but something vain or self-righteous or abominable gets by the side of it directly, and then I hate myself more than ever."

"O thank God, dear girl, for revealing to you something of the deceitfulness of your own heart, for nothing else can make us depend entirely on the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no safe place for the soul, no purifying influence for the heart, and no real fulfillment of duty, except looking unto him; and to be drawing contrasts or making outward differences between ourselves and others, is just a plot of Satan to turn aside our gaze from the right direction and our step front progress in our Master's service."

"But there are many differences between God's people and the people of the world that should be seen, are there not?"

"Yes, many; but they are, if I may venture to use the expression, differences of growth and feature: they will come with our spiritual progress, and should not be assumed as a badge by ourselves. It is as easy and natural for a real Christian to dress with modest simplicity, as for a worldly person to be in the height of the fashion; and as easy to restrain the wishes within the limit of one's means, as for an extravagant person to exceed them. The love of God is a regulator of all such matters, when the Holy Spirit has planted it with renewing power within our hearts. His children bear his likeness without any unnatural effort of their own."

Ellen's displeasure against her friends, the Ashtons, gradually subsided. Fanny, she knew, had nothing to do with the cause of offense; and when her changed manner to Mr. Harry had induced his urgent inquiries into the reason, she had allowed herself to be satisfied with his assurances that he had only spoken to disguise from his parents the real state of his feelings toward her, until he should be able to act independently of their authority. Alas! Poor Ellen in her gratified vanity did not pause to reflect, that the sin of the excuse was still greater than the original mischief; but, had she done so, she would have had no reason for surprise, for he who deliberately disregarded God was not likely to be scrupulous about the fifth commandment, or any other which opposed his inclination.

Jane observed the renewal of the intercourse with great uneasiness, and made many attempts, by giving up her own greatest pleasure that of joining Mrs. Davis on a Sunday in order to induce her sister to walk with her alone, or remain at home together.

"Have you quarreled with Mary Davis," asked Ellen on one occasion when this proposal was made, "that you are always teasing me to stay with you?"

"No; but I have not quarreled with you either, and we so seldom have an afternoon together."

"Why, you are so dreadfully dull now, you have nothing to talk about."

"I am sure I will talk if you will listen to me," said Jane cheerfully.

"Ah, you will, I dare say; but it is about what I don't want to hear. I don't know at all why you should think ill of me, Jane, and that I need to be saved, and all that. I go to church very often in a morning, and if I happen to miss a Sunday or two, I go twice in one day to make up for it; and when there is a collection you don't know how much I put in more than you think, depend upon it; and I shouldn't boast of it, only one must speak up for one's self."

"It is not what I think, dear Ellen; I only tell you sometimes what the Bible says, and it is not possible to speak up for ourselves to God, you know. You must hear what he says some day; and if you have no Saviour to speak for you, what can you do?"

"I hate to hear you, Jane," exclaimed Ellen impatiently; "it is all the nonsense that Mrs. Davis has put into your head, and I don't believe a word of it. You pretend to love me one minute, and the next you make out that I am so wicked I can't go to heaven. And then you would rob one of the only pleasure we have, our little treats on a Sunday."

"I only want you to try to find your pleasure in another way, for I quite agree with you that we do need pleasure, or change, or recreation, whatever you please to call it, after six days' close work."

"Then why in the world do you never take any?" asked Ellen, in great astonishment at the admission; "it is our own day, and we ought to enjoy it."

"No, it is the Lord's day, and he gives the real rest, and the true pleasure. Which of us gives the best proof of that on a Monday morning, Ellen?"

"Of course you expect me to say you, because you happen to get up first."

"Yes, I do; your head aches, you are so tired, you wish there was no work to do, and then with a few others you grumble together and find fault with everything because you miss the excitement and the flattery of the day before."

"While you and Mary sit at work thinking how good you are," said Ellen, knowing full well the truth of her sister's statement.

"We often think how good it is to have a day that no one has a right to interfere with; when we may have time to read, and think, and pray for all the help we need to make us happy and contented to work on the other days, and to remind us that it is not merely to earn money, or serve an earthly mistress, but to serve our heavenly Father. It is so happy, Ellen, to turn from our work for the body to that clothing for a better world prepared for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have nothing to do with the making of, but only to put it on."

"All very fine indeed; and you pretend this makes you willing to get to work again on Monday," said Ellen, scornfully.

"It makes me happy to be just where God's will makes it my duty to be," replied Jane, meekly.

"I'm sure I wonder you condescend to be a milliner; I wonder it isn't much too worldly a business for you."

"I thought it was, and wanted to give it up; but Mrs. Davis convinced me that one may earn an honest living in it without being worldly and frivolous."

"Well, you needn't expect me to go into partnership with you, and so I shall tell uncle, for you would ruin our prospects at once, I see; but I'm going out now, so good-by."

"You have a cold, dear Ellen; pray do not stay out late: you know the evenings are getting chilly, and come on early now. Do take a shawl, in case you should feel cold in that light muslin."

But Jane might as well have talked to the muslin itself, and Ellen flitted away as light and thoughtless as ever. Her lesson was to be learned under other teaching.